Fr Alvaro Corcuera’s Lent letter reflects on Christ’s interaction with the Samaritan woman at the well.

"The sensitive, loving, and yet demanding way he treats this woman is a constant source of inspiration for each one of us."

March 17, 2011. In this year’s Lent letter, Fr Alvaro
Corcuera focuses on our mission as apostles, highlighting three actions
by which Christ shows his love for the Samaritan woman
at the well: he awakens her thirst for God, responds
to her existential questions, and accompanies her through the process
of her conversion.

“These three attitudes—awaken, respond, accompany—are not three
successive moments in time or independent steps, but three dimensions
of the same mission, three manifestations of a single love,”
writes Fr Alvaro.

An English translation of the letter is
presented below and in pdf format.

***

Thy
Kingdom Come!

REGNUM CHRISTIMOVEMENT

GENERAL DIRECTOR

Rome,
March 9, 2011

To the members and friends of Regnum
Christi as we begin Lent

Dear friends in Christ:

As in previous years, I would like to take advantage
of the start of Lent to write to you and
be with you through these words.

This liturgical season, and
also the historical period in which we are living, are
a special call to conversion, to turn our gaze back
to Christ, to be more like him and to live
in greater self-giving to our brothers and sisters. The Church
invites us to put on “heartfelt compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness,
and patience” (cf. Col. 3:12). Our Christian life in Regnum
Christi is a vocation to love. We seek to be
and live as apostles at all times, giving ourselves, seeking
the ultimate good of others as people redeemed and loved
by God.

The passage on Christ’s meeting with the Samaritan
woman, which the Church presents to us this year on
the third Sunday of Lent (cf. Jn. 4:5-42) can help
us with this reflection. There are many lessons we can
draw from Jesus‟ example for our life as apostles. The
sensitive, loving, and yet demanding way he treats this woman
is a constant source of inspiration for each one of
us. Regnum Christi hopes that all of its members will
let themselves be transformed by Christ in such a way
that by their lifestyle they allow others to see that
life is beautiful and achieves its fullness in personal contact
with Christ. Thus, I believe that, following the Lord’s example,
our love for each person can be translated into three
fundamental attitudes that we can draw from this Gospel passage:
awaken, respond, and accompany.

1. Awaken

Christ turns up and questions
the Samaritan woman; we could say that he awakens her
thirst for God. “If you knew the gift of God
and who is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’
you would have asked him and he would have given
you living water” (Jn. 4:10). We all carry in the
very depths of our being that yearning for God that
permeates our entire life, and we feel called to share
with our brothers and sisters this deeply felt desire to
live in God and for God who “thirsts for our
faith and our love. As a good and merciful father,
he wants our total, possible good, and this good is
he himself. The Samaritan woman, on the other hand, represents
the existential dissatisfaction of one who does not find what
he seeks. She had ‘five husbands’ and now she lives
with another man; her going to and from the well
to draw water expresses a repetitive and resigned life. However,
everything changes for her that day, thanks to the conversation
with the Lord Jesus, who upsets her to the point
that she leaves her pitcher of water and runs to
tell the villagers: ‘Come, see a man who told me
all that I ever did. Can this be the Christ?’”
(Jn 4:29). (Benedict XVI, Angelus of February 24, 2008).

We
are called to collaborate with the Church in this mission,
especially in the work of the new evangelization. In this
sense, it is very significant that the Holy Father wished
to institute a new dicastery to help him drive this
effort forward, and that the next ordinary assembly of the
synod of bishops will also be on this topic. It
is imperative to awaken the faith and the thirst for
God that our brothers and sisters carry inside!

2. Respond

Jesus awakens the Samaritan woman’s curiosity and her desire for
a water that she has not yet experienced, but that
can slake her thirst and spare her the toilsome need
to go to the well every day. How does he
do it? Jesus delicately reminds her of her own lifestyle:
“You are right in saying, ‘I do not have a
husband.’ For you have had five husbands, and the one
you have now is not your husband. What you have
said is true.” (cf. vv. 17-18). And as he reminds
her of that situation, he makes her reflect interiorly and
discover that such a path will never fulfill her longing
for true happiness. Jesus capitalizes on the moment to give
her an answer: “He spoke of a ‘living water’ able
to quench her thirst and become in her ‘a spring
of water welling up to eternal life’; in addition, he
demonstrated that he knew her personal life; he revealed that
the hour has come to adore the one true God
in spirit and truth; and lastly, he entrusted her with
something extremely rare: that he is the Messiah” (Benedict XVI,
idem). Who could live the same after a personal encounter
with Jesus? It is the experience that St. Peter had
when, in spite of his doubts and weaknesses, he exclaimed,
“Master, to whom shall we go? You have the words
of eternal life” (Jn. 6:68) or St. Paul, who one
day wrote, “I live, no longer I, but Christ lives
in me” (Gal. 2:20).

Our mission as apostles cannot be
reduced to passing on just ideas or mere doctrinal content.
These are necessary but insufficient to respond to people’s existential
questions. Our way of living should be an answer that
satisfies such questions. Yes, our witness of Christian life should
show that it is possible to find happiness and plenitude
in Christ, and that he is the only definitive answer.
Nothing better can happen to us in life than helping
others to discover the love of Jesus, his humility that
fills us with peace, his affection and gentleness that soften
the heart and lighten troubles. There is nothing better than
helping others to experience the goodness of Jesus, which is
a balsam, a source of joy; teaching men that following
Christ produces personal coherency and authenticity, the soul’s true freedom.
He gives us wings to keep heaven always in view
and not to get lost in the means; he makes
us walk with him day and night, although we often
do not see the goal of the path: being with
him, loving him and letting ourselves be loved by him
is like having already arrived to the end goal.

Our
Christian commitment pushes us to be a reflection of God’s
infinite love for mankind. In his Lenten message for this
year, the Pope tells us, “Hence, Baptism is not a
rite from the past, but the encounter with Christ, which
informs the entire existence of the baptized, imparting divine life
and calling for sincere conversion; initiated and supported by Grace,
it permits the baptized to reach the adult stature of
Christ.” We seek to be converted so that we can
be faithful instruments of grace and lead others to find
Christ. This is the response Christ expects from us.

3.
Accompany

At the end of the passage we are contemplating,
we see that Jesus changed his plans and stayed in
the town two days more than he had intended (cf.
v. 40). No doubt he did it to complete the
work he had begun in the soul of that woman
and her neighbors. A personal encounter with Christ is usually
not confined to one fleeting moment but rather is a
gradual and continual process. Thus, love for our brothers and
sisters leads us to accompany and guide them on that
path. We accompany the people in our lives so that
they can say, “We no longer believe because of your
word; for we have heard for ourselves, and we know
that this [Jesus] is truly the savior of the world”
(v. 42). Jesus teaches us to reach out to heal
our brother’s wounds, even though we ourselves are full of
wounds; to bear with one another, to share sorrows and
joys. It is the authentic compassion of the one who
forgets his own fatigue and burdens so as to alleviate
and accompany his neighbor.

If we want Regnum Christi to
continue being a path of conversion and sanctification for many
souls, our apostolic action must always aim to accompany, guide,
and foster in each man and woman the desire to
set out on the path to meet God, just as
Christ did with the Samaritan woman by Jacob’s Well. Many
spiritual authors propose the image of man as a traveler
whose origin and ultimate goal is God. Each person is
personally, freely called to move toward the transformative encounter with
him who revealed himself to us in Christ. God’s grace
impels us from within, and the action of the Church
helps us with the Word and the sacraments. Our brothers
and sisters support and accompany us. But ultimately, it is
each one of us who must step forward, and no
one can take our place in that effort.

These three
attitudes—awaken, respond, accompany—are not three successive moments in time or
independent steps, but three dimensions of the same mission, three
manifestations of a single love. With our reason, heart, and
will, we perceive the love of God and thus, in
that deep interior unity, we seek to respond in the
same currency. Love is repaid with love.

May we never
cease seeking each day to drink the water that Christ
wishes to give us in prayer and in personal contact
with him in the Eucharist. Let us not forget that
while we accompany our brothers and sisters, we ourselves are
walking the same path, needing God’s grace and each other’s
support. I also invite you to pray very much for
Cardinal Velasio De Paolis, our papal delegate, so that the
Holy Spirit will continue enlightening him in his work of
guiding us on this path of renewal and purification that
we are walking together as a family.